For fince each hand hath put on nature's power, Sweet The reader may now proceed to more pieces of the same structure, which the friends of the late Mr. Edwards were willing to receive as effufions of fancy as well as friendship. If the appetite for fuch a mode of writing be even then unfatisfied, I hope that old Joshua Sylvester (I confefs myself unacquainted with the extent of his labours) has likewise been a fonneteer; for furely his fuccefs in this form of poetry must have been tranfcendent indeed, and could not fail to afford complete gratification to the admirers of a stated number of lines compofed in the highest strain of affectation, pedantry, circumlocution and nonfenfe. In the mean time, let inferiour writers be warned against a species of compofition which has reduced the most exalted poets to a level with the meanest rhimers; has almoft cut down Milton and Shakspeare to the standards of Pomfret and-but the name of Pomfret is perhaps the lowest in the scale of English verfifiers. As for Mr. Malone, whose animadverfions are to follow mine, "Now is he for the numbers that Petrarch flowed in." Let me however bor. row fomewhat in my own favour from the fame fpeech of Mercutio, by obferving that "Laura had a better love to be-rhyme her." Let me adopt alfo the fentiment which Shakspeare himself, on his amended judgment, has put into the mouth of his favourite character in Love's Labour's loft: "Tut! none but minstrels like of Sonneting." STEEVENS. I do not feel any great propensity to ftand forth as the champion of thefe compofitions. However, as it appears to me that they have been fomewhat under-rated, I think it incumbent on me to do them that justice to which they seem entitled. Of Petrarch (whose works I have never read) I cannot speak; but I am flow to believe that a writer who has been warmly admired for four centuries by his own countrymen, is without merit, though he has been guilty of the heinous offence of addreffing his miftrefs in pieces of only that number of lines which by long ufage has been appropriated to the fonnet. The burlesque ftanzas which have been produced to depretiate the poems before us, it must be acknowledged, are not ill executed; but they will never decide the merit of this fpecies of compofition, until it shall be established that ridicule is the tett of truth. The fourteen rugged lines that have been quoted from Milton for the fame purpofe, are equally inconclufive; for it is well known that he generally failed when he attempted rhime, whether bis verfes affumed the shape of a fonnet or any other form. Thefe pieces of our author therefore must at last Åland or fall by themselves. When they are defcribed as a mass of affectation, pedantry, Sweet beauty hath no name, no holy hour, There circumlocution, and nonfenfe, the picture appears to me overcharged. Their great defects feen to be a want of variety, and the majority of them not being directed to a female, to whom alone fuch ardent expreffions of esteem could with propriety be addreffed. It cannot be denied too that they contain fome farfetched conceits; but are our author's plays entirely free from them? Many of the thoughts that occur in his dramatick productions, are found here likewife; as may appear from the numerous parallels that have been cited from his dramas, chiefly for the purpofe of authenticating thefe poems. Had they therefore no other merit, they are entitled to our attention, as often illuftrating obfcure paffages in his plays. I do not perceive that the verfification of these pieces is lefs fmooth and harmonious than that of Shakspeare's other compofitions. Though many of them are not fo fimple and clear as they ought to be, yet fome of them are written with perfpicuity and energy. A few have been already pointed out as deferving this character; and many beautiful lines, fcattered through these poems, will, it is fuppofed, strike every reader who is not determined to allow no praife to any fpecies of poetry except blank verfe or heroick couplets. MALONE, The cafe of these Sonnets is certainly bad, when fo little can be advanced in fupport of them. Ridicule is always fuccessful where it is just. A burlefque on Alexander's Feaft would do no injury to its original. Some of the rhime compofitions of Milton (Sonnets excepted) are allowed to be eminently harmonious. Is it neceffary on this occafion to particularize his Allegro, Penferofo, and Hymn on the Nativity? I must add, that there is more conceit in any thirty-fix of Shakspeare's Sonnets, than in the fame number of his Plays. When I know where that perfon is to be found who allows no praife to any fpecies of poetry. except blank verfe and heroic couplets, it will be early enough for me to undertake his defence. STEEVENS. That ridicule is generally fuccefsful when it is just, cannot be denied; but whether it be juft in the prefent inftance, is the point to be proved. It may be fuccefsful when it is not juft; when neither the structure nor the thoughts of the poem ridiculed, deferve to be derided. No burlesque on Alexander's Feaft certainly would render it ridiculous; yet undoubtedly a fuccefsful parody or burlesque piece might be formed upon it, which in itself might have intrinfick merit. The fuccefs of the burlesque therefore does not neceffarily depend upon, nor afcertain, the demerit of the Therefore my miftrefs' eyes are raven black, the original. Of this Cotton's Virgil Travefie affords a decifive proof. The most rigid mufcles muft relax on the perufal of it; yet the purity and majesty of the Eneid will ever remain undiminished.-With refpect to Milton, (of whom I have only faid that he generally, not that he always failed in rhyming compofitions,) Dryden, at a time when all rivalry and competi tion between them were at an end, when he had ceafed to write for the stage, and when of course it was indifferent to him what metre was confidered as beft fuited to dramatick compofitions, pronounced, that he compofed his great poem in blank verfe, because rhime was not his talent. He had neither (adds the Laureate) the ease of doing it, nor the graces of it; which is manifeft in his Juvenilia or Verfes written in his youth; where bis rbime is always conftrained, and forced, and comes hardly from him, at an age when the foul is most pliant, and the paffion of love makes almost every man a rhimer, though not a poet." MALONE. Cotton's work is an innocent parody, was defigned as no ridi cule on the Æneid, and confequently will not operate to the dif advantage of that immortal poem. The contrary is the cafe with Mr. Roderick's imitation of the Spaniard. He wrote it as a ridicule on the ftructure, not the words of a Sonnet; and this is a purpose which it has completely anfwered. No one ever retired from a perufal of it with a favourable opinion of the fpecies of compofition it was meant to deride. The decifions of Dryden are never lefs to be trufted than when he treats of blank verse and rhime, each of which he has extolled and depreciated in its turn. When this fubject is before him, his judgment is rarely fecure from the feductions of convenience, intereft or jealoufy; and Gildon has well observed, that in his prefaces he had always confidence enough to defend and fupport his own moft glaring inconfiftencies and telf-contradictions. What he has faid of the author of Paradife Loft, is with a view to retaliation. Milton had invidioufly afferted that Dryden was only a rhymift; and therefore Dryden, with as little regard to truth, has declared that Milton was no rhymift at all. Let my other fentiments fhift for themselves. Here I fhall drop the controversy. STEEVENS. In juftice to Shakspeare, whofe caufe I have undertaken, however unequal to the talk, I cannot forbear to add, that a literary Procruftes may as well be called the inventor of the couplet, 3 Her eyes fo fuited,] Her eyes of the fame colour as thofe of the raven. MALONE. At fuch, who not born fair, no beauty lack, Yet fo they mourn, becoming of their woe", How oft, when thou, my mufick', mufick play'ft, Do couplet, the ftanza, or the ode, as of the Sonnet. They are all in a certain degree restraints on the writer; and all poetry, if the objection now made be carried to its utmoft extent, will be reduced to blank verfe. The admirers of this kind of metre have long remarked with triumph that of the couplet the first line is generally for fenfe, and the next for rhime; and this certainly is often the cafe in the compofitions of mere verfifiers; but is fuch a redundancy an effential property of a couplet, and will the works of Dryden and Pope afford none of another character ?-The bondage to which Pindar and his followers have fubmitted in the ftructure of ftrophé, antiftrophé, and epode, is much greater than that which the Sonnet impofes. If the fcanty thought be difguftingly dilated, or luxuriant ideas unnaturally compreffed, what follows? Not furely that it is impoffible to write good Odes, or good Sonnets, but that the poet was injudicious in the choice of his fubject, or knew not how to adjuit his metre to his thoughts. and they mourners feem At fuch, who not born fair no beauty lack, MALONE. Slandering creation with a falfe efteem:] They seem to mourn that thofe who are not born fair, are yet poffeffed of an artificial beauty, by which they pafs for what they are not, and thus dishonour nature by their imperfect imitation and false pretenfions. MALONE. S becoming of their woe,] So, in Antony and Cleopatra: Fye, wrangling queen! "Whom every thing becomes, to chide, to laugh, "To weep." MALONE. when thou, my mufick,] So, in Pericles: "You are a viol, and your sense the strings, "Which, finger'd to make man his lawful musick, &c.” STEEVENS. 7 The wiry concord that mine ear confounds,] We had the fame expreffion before in the eighth Sonnet: Do I envy thofe jacks, that nimble leap Whilft my poor lips, which fhould that harvest reap, O'er whom thy fingers walk with gentle gait', CXXIX. The expence of fpirit in a waste of fhame "If the true concord of well-tuned founds, "By unious married, do offend thine ear." MALONE. 8 Do I envy those jacks, ] This word is accented by other ancient writers in the fame manner. So, in Marlowe's Edward 11. 1598: "If for thefe dignities thou be enery"d." MALONE. To kifs the tender inward of thy band?] So, in Chrononbotonthologos: "the tea-cups fkip "With eager hafte to kifs your royal lip." STEEVENS. ́ There is fcarcely a writer of love-verfes, among our elder poets, who has not introduced hyperboles as extravagant as that in the text. Thus Waller, in his Addrefs to a Lady playing on the Lute: "The trembling frings about her fingers crowd, "And tell their joy for ev'ry kifs aloud." MALONE. O'er awhom thy fingers walk with gentle gait,] Here again their is printed in the old copy instead of thy. So alfo in the last line of this Sonnet. MALONE. 2 Since faucy jacks fo happy are in this,] He is here fpeaking of a fmall kind of fpinnet, anciently called a virginal. So, in Ram Alley, or Merry Tricks, 1511: "Where be these rafcals that skip up and down See note on The Winter's Tale, edit. 1778. Vol. IV. p. 299. STEEVENS. Enjoy'd |